What you do and don’t do creates a trail or trace. The sum of what everybody does is our culture and gradually becomes our history. The mass of ordinary men and women are the actors in this play or run of events. You are an important person whether you follow the stream or act independently. The sum of activity tells the story. The spread in the group tells another.
We have democracy, urban/rural areas, administrative systems and some self-controlled activity.
We make the world as we consume through dwelling, cooking, looking at art, produce by going to work to make goods or deliver services.
There is intelligence in what you do, what you consume and what you produce. You are intelligent as you constantly interact with others as you watch TV, go to games, work in the garden, go on holiday, buy lots of stuff, eat, move to another environment ….. All the time a composite picture is emerging.
What are your own reasons, tactics and strategy? Are you happy or are you being pushed into something you do not want? We may be tightly controlled or we are free to make our own arrangements – find products and methods suiting your own purposes. You may use your networks, take part in rituals, are you flexible, do you take chances?
We are all at the margin in that you don’t say much if you don’t want to, and you can evade the big processes by not taking part. Just pick bits that are useful to you, and let the strong do the rest for you. If you can’t abide you opt out.
So we have to move forward in order to develop and what you do is constantly taken hold of and summed up, and fed back to you. Constraints of many kinds – technical, economical, administrative – may reduce the choices available, but we are always trying and testing possibilities based on our preferences. We want to use the system as it is for our own good.
You always have an inner – thinking, reasoning - and outer – activity – life that has to be reconciled. A balance must be struck.
You participate – voluntarily – and as you do this you design the social world. As we see around us the challenge is to move more people in the world into this process of checks and balances so that they can control their own life. People must have choices and be able to follow their desires to live.